UCLA in the News lists selected mentions of UCLA in the world’s news media. Some articles may require registration or a subscription. See more UCLA in the News.
Restoring America’s democracy through education | EdSurge
(Commentary co-written by UCLA’s Eileen Strempel) This astounding statistic — that for our poorest students, nearly 90 percent don't earn a degree — serves as a powerful reminder that the promise and hope of U.S. higher education remains shockingly unfulfilled. It is true that college transforms both lives and livelihoods, but only for students with the financial means and wherewithal to complete a degree. The solution to intergenerational poverty is within our reach — especially for those of us who believe in the transformative power of higher education.
Music festival’s vaccination policy causes concern | Los Angeles Times
Dr. Annette Regan, a professor of epidemiology at UCLA, said vaccination remains the gold standard for ensuring safety. “Vaccination is the best way to prevent getting COVID-19. If a concert has a group of unvaccinated individuals in a close space — even outdoors — this can lead to outbreaks,” she said.
Attacks on school board meetings are threatening democracy | Los Angeles Times
(Commentary co-written by UCLA’s John Rogers) As researchers who have long studied the democratic aims of education, we are concerned these antidemocratic attacks will lead district and school leaders to avoid putting into place challenging policies, such as COVID-related masking and vaccine rules aimed at protecting the health of educators and students.
Dinosaur extinction led to new animals — and snakes to eat them | NPR’s “All Things Considered”
Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid shut the door on the dinosaurs. But it opened a window for other creatures to flourish, like mammals and birds, but also snakes. “Snakes essentially exploded in their ecological diversity,” said Michael Grundler, a post-doctoral researcher at UCLA … [who] recently analyzed this snake evolution, along with Professor Daniel Rabosky of the University of Michigan. (Also: ScienceDaily.)
Dry weather and Santa Ana winds | CNN
Santa Ana winds are strong, hot, dust-bearing winds that descend toward the Pacific Coast around Los Angeles from inland desert regions. The weather condition is most common from October through March, when the desert is relatively cold. The winds develop as high pressure builds over Nevada’s Great Basin, according to the UCLA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.
Colorado first to include gender-affirming care as essential benefit | Newsweek
Under federal law, state Medicaid programs are not required to provide gender-affirming care but each government can have policies that ban certain forms of affirmative care or not have anything written regarding the coverage. Christy Mallory, legal director at the Williams Institute, a research institute based in the University of California Los Angeles’ School of Law, said that this creates a “gray area” for trans people on Medicaid without coverage.
Americans drank, smoked more in pandemic | Fox News
A national team led by the University of California, Los Angeles found that U.S. residents also spent less time exercising and more time in front of a screen. “We found that regulations to restrict non-essential activities and stay-at-home orders during the pandemic have had profoundly negative impacts on multiple lifestyle behaviors in American adults,” Dr. Liwei Chen, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health associate professor of epidemiology and lead author of the study, said in a UCLA release. (UCLA’s Dr. Jian Li is also quoted.)
‘Feel good’ hormone won’t ease kids’ autism | HealthDay News
A new clinical trial finds no evidence that kids with autism benefit from nasal sprays containing the “love” hormone oxytocin … [but] behavioral therapy, especially started early in life, can help children develop social skills, said Dr. Daniel Geschwind, a professor of genetics, neurology and psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The majority of children respond,” he said, “but not everyone does. And only in some people it is a dramatic response.”
Lyme disease often spotted late in Black patients | HealthDay News
The tell-tale sign of Lyme disease is its bulls-eye rash, but that might be harder to spot in Black people, who are often diagnosed with more advanced disease than white people are, new research suggests. The first sign of Lyme disease looks different on darker skin, and these differences are not usually reflected in images found in medical textbooks, explained study author Dr. Dan Ly. He is an assistant professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles.
True story behind ‘The Last Duel’ and history’s attempt to erase it | Time
“Do you swear on your life that what you say is true?” This question, posed to Marguerite de Carrouges (Jodie Comer), encapsulates the true history behind “The Last Duel,” director Ridley Scott’s new film opening in theaters Oct. 15. Based on the 2004 book of the same name by Eric Jager, a professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles and a specialist in medieval literature, the film uses its titular event — the last judicial duel in French history, held in Paris in December 1386 — to delve deeply into the Middle Ages’ complex politics of gender, female agency, religious morality and sexual ethics.